Windows 7 - New computer, seeking advice!

Hi people,

i recently bought a new computer with an installed Win7HomePremium. It is fairly good and these are a few of the properties:

Intel i3 540
4GB memory
32bit OS

(if u need more ask)

I was wondering what programs you can suggest me, I'm getting mixed messaged from all kinds of people on what software i should(n't) download and its getting annoying... so i'm glad i ran into this forum, seems like the ultimate forums for my questions

So a general question could be what programs u suggest me to use in order to keep my computer swift and powerful and without viruses?
This is my antivirus - avast
i think my firewall and WinDefender are on.

I've heard that these programs are good:

Malwarebyte
Advance System Care

It should be noted that the person who recomended these to me has a computer since 2003 which she uses the progs to clean it every 2-3 days. And it's working great, or so she says.

So in addition it could be awesome if anyone can give me ONE answer instead of the mixed opinions - whether or not should i clean my computer by running such software and if so which ones and how often?


Also is it true that IE is regarded as a problematic browser? I switched to Chrome without erasing IE and so far it's fairly good (except for random slow downs and sites not opening , and especially having trouble being on facebook too long )

One more question that i believe , out of anyone, you can help with: By default, the folders are presented in list-like formation and it's kinda tiring going over every folder and ordering them differently. Can I do anything to make all of the folders sort in a different way?

Last thing - and possibly one of the more important ones - my technician told me that if i were to format my PC, and i'd have at that point over 200GB taken (out of the 500 i have ), the computer will erase some of MY files as well.
If that is true - that's completely stupid. Is it ? And if so what should i do? (have one partition)

BTW I often see all kinds of short versions of words here, like BSOD, SSD, UAC and what not. It would be very nice of you, considering many of the readers don't know these terms, to simply write the full word. It doesn't take much time .

THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!!!!

My advice, Comodo Internet Secuirty is all you really need for Anti-Virus, Firewall (A better one then the native firewall) and anti-spyware. I suppose you could go a bit further by adding Threatfire, you'll be fine using the free versions of both. But Avast & Natives are fine if you on Windows 7 and behind a router with a built in firewall, the combo i mentioned before is better on security though, while it cost more ram, you have 4GB's of it and the amount it cost is trival in your case.

As for IE being problemtic, yea it used to be true but its been alright sense IE8 & IE9 (recommend IE9, support HTML5 & CSS3 stuff better, and it should be in your updates if you haven't ran them already).

I also recommended CCleaner its free and does a great job at cleaning your registry amongest other maintance tasks.

And if you need a suite like Microsoft Office, then I would suggest LibreOffice, its free and open source.

Welcome

As soon as you get home with your computer:

Dont install the antivirus software that pops up with instuctions to install.
Should be done at the end and this software, although probably free for a while,
will cost money down the road and is probably not the best.

Windows updates should be done immediately as you are vulnerable to problems
until updated; be sure to include office updates.

Adobe reader should be updated, the most recent version is a sandbox version which
reduces virus vulnerablity to your PDF files.

This is also the opportunity to download Adobe Flash Player

Download an alertative browser; ie FF or Chrome etc. In the event of problems with IE.

Remove any unwanted program bloat. They will slow up your computer and probably
cost money in the future.

Download your antivirus; Microsoft Security Essentials is suggested.

Make your recovery disc.

Now enjoy the internet.

To maintain your computer

10 Tips on How to Properly Maintain Your Computer

Steps that I did not notice on the guide include:

Running a scan disc before doing a defrag

Using Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes.

Making System Restore points, at least once a week

Makaing a system Image once a month (varies by user)

Not relying on your A/V common sense, should prevail. You know of many sites can cause a problem.

Do not use any reg cleaning or optimizing software.

Download and use Ccleaner about once every two months. Untick any registry entries.
Piriform - Download CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva, Speccy - Millions of users worldwide!

If you follow these instructions, you will be trouble free for a long time to come.

Be sure to back up your hard drive about once a month (varies by user) and to keeep system restore points up to date.

Optimize Windows 7
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...er-performance

BSOD Blue Screen of death. Your computer crashes with a blue screen
SSD Solid State Drive
Solid-state drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
UAC User Account Control Used for security.

Not really much more that I can add, richc64 pretty much nailed it all!!

I've used CCleaner for a long time and cleaned the registry and have been perfectly fine O.o

If it concerns you just backup the registry everytime or at various points, your given that option when you clean the registry. And if you clean and something bad happens just restore the registry from the last backup. But again I've been using it straight and for a while and have had numerous apps and games and no problems. I find keeping the registry clean also helps a lot with keeping the system well preforming.

Didn't have a issue at all back when I tested the RC version of windows 7 either, so I dunno where this don't clean the registry stuff is coming from with ccleaner.

Thanks for your opinion, but its not mine. Seven does not need it. However, AT least one very respected member of this forum does agree with you.

Fair enough.

I don't have all the shiny medals that Rich does, but I have seen registry cleaners cause more harm than good with windows 7. CCleaner is a good program, but registry cleaning and Windows 7 do not mesh in my experiences as a builder.

Hi, to answer your question about listing folders in a different way. In your Documents Folder on the title bar far over to the right, you will see an icon cosisting of 3 small squares followed by 6 dashes, followed by a downward arrow to a drop down list of all the ways you can display your folders.

As far as formatting, I wouldn't get into doing that if you don't absolutely have to. I have never had to format to solve a problem, although I'm not saying to never format.

I'm with you with all the abbreviations. You really have to keep up as to what some of them mean.

Finally, I think your Avast! is just fine.